ABOUT THE ARTISTS

CHEONG LAITONG (1932—2022)

Born 1932 in China, Cheong Laitong came to Malaysia in 1937. As one of the earliest contributors in Malaysian modern art, he alongside his contemporaries established themselves as the “avant-garde” artists in the KL art circle of the 1960s with inclinations towards abstract expressionism. In 1961, he was granted a scholarship to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, USA before going on to further his art education at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. A member and later President of the Wednesday Art Group, he is well known for having designed the large frontal mosaics of the National Museum in Kuala Lumpur. The 1960s also saw him join Rothman’s as its Creative Director, a post that he held from 1963 to 1992. He has won numerous awards including first prize at the Salon Malaysia in 1969 and 1979, and his work has been exhibited in Malaysia, India, UK, Canada, Japan.

(Credit: Ilham Gallery)

HAMIDI HADI (B. 1971)

Hamidi Hadi is regarded as one of the most prominent abstract artists of his generation, and is well-known for his experimental and explorative use of material. Over the years, his practice has formally migrated from pictorial representation of the objective world, into abstraction and the synthesis of complex materials and methods, to describe his emotional and spiritual responses to the world.

He investigates the natural phenomenon of the world and uses this in his imaginary landscapes, through the application of industrial paint, resin, wax, linseed oil and charcoal in layers, allowing gravity and movement, to create surface tension. As we contemplate his abstract works, we begin to connect the reference points that give us clues to the artist’s inner landscape, and his contemplation of his place in the world.

Hamidi Hadi received the UOB Painting of the Year (Malaysia) – Bronze Award, Established Artist Category in 2018, the Bank Negara’s Kijang Award in 2004 and the Philip Morris ASEAN Biennale Art Award in 2000. His works have also been collected by both public and private institutions and corporations. Amongst them are the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur, Setia Berhad, and the National Art Gallery of Malaysia. He has exhibited extensively both within Malaysia and on international platforms, with exhibitions in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and the United Kingdom.

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IWADH MAHADI (B. 1999)

Iwadh Syafiq Ikhwan bin Mahadi (b. 1999, malaysia) is a contemporary artist whose practice moves between abstraction and figuration through material-based processes. Working across painting, installation, and printmaking, he is known for his use of bamboo frottage, ground textures, and textile assemblage as primary visual language.
His practice is rooted in the act of imprint—treating surfaces not as passive grounds but as sites of contact, memory, and transformation. Through rubbing, stamping, and repetition, he constructs images that emerge from physical encounter rather than illusion. These marks function as both index and structure, forming systems that echo natural growth, ritual practice, and human networks.

Central to his work is an ongoing inquiry into spirituality as lived condition. Drawing from islamic thought and personal mythology, he explores the tension between discipline and failure, control and surrender, the sacred and the flawed. His works often occupy a threshold where order begins to destabilise, and where imperfection becomes a form of sincerity.

Iwadh frequently works on raw, unprimed surfaces, allowing material vulnerability to remain visible. The body plays a critical role in his process—not as subject alone, but as an agent—where gesture becomes a form of submission and making becomes an act of negotiation rather than control.

His recent solo exhibition, Trilogy: The Lightseeker (2025) at Wei-Ling Contemporary, marked a significant development in his practice, presenting a body of work that frames art-making as both spiritual inquiry and material encounter.

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JAMES LY (B. 1984)

James Ly is an artist, curator and educator who’s practice evades easy definition. A graduate of the Duncan Jordanstone College of Art & Design, he is an artist with an interest in globalisation, the transitory nature of things and the relation between image and language. He co-founded Minut Init in 2010. An art project that is dedicated to the diversification of the artistic climate in Malaysia and Anthology of Metaverses in 2020 an online initiative, virtual exhibition space and digital exploration project that embraces the idea of the internet as a deterritorialized space.

Often creating works that are multilayered studies of materiality, form and process. James investigates different forms of language, understanding and perception through drawing, painting, sculpture, installations and projects. With a focus on creating temporality structures that meditate on the theme of co-existence and legacy in the time of global warming, technological revolution and cold war, as an instrument to speculate equatorial futurities within the south east asian region through the lens of globalisation and the environment.

Central to his practice are the ideas of freedom and hybridity, which are expressed through his process of deconstructing ontological categories through embracing experimentation. Often juxtaposing unfamiliar materials together to create hybrid sculptural objects and structural interventions of spacetime to explore novel possibilities for production and meaning making. Through this process James liberates objects and ecosystems from established narratives inherited from neo colonialism and late capitalism to propose alternate narratives infused with themes related to kinship, extinction, regeneration and evolution. Through poetic gestures that allude to explorations of alternative models for co-existence and human legacy on earth in the form of abstraction, personal fantasies and fiction that are informed by history, philosophy and mass media. To ask the questions “How will we (humanity) evolve?” and “What will we leave behind?”

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KHABIR ROSLAN (B. 1995)

Khabir Roslan (b. 1995, Malaysia) is a trans-disciplinary artist whose practice explores the intersections of materiality, spirituality, ecology, and post-human thought. Working across painting, sculpture, installation, and site-responsive practices, he investigates themes of impermanence, interconnectedness, memory, and care through materials such as compost soil, gauze, raw jute and organic matter.

Khabir is a graduate of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Khabir received the Most Promising Artist Award in the Emerging Artist category of the UOB Painting of the Year Malaysia 2020. His practice draws from Islamic philosophy, Nusantara cosmology, and posthumanism, exploring how processes of decay, healing, and regeneration reveal the entangled relationships between humans, non-human life. Through organic and trans-formative materials, his works challenge anthropocentric perspectives and propose a more relational understanding of being.

In 2021, he was selected as a Pelatih Tamu (Guest Trainee) for the Ilmu Program at Museum Gallery Tuanku Fauziah, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), where he developed site-specific works through engagements with traditional Malay architecture, cultural heritage, and tacit knowledge. In 2023, he participated in the WLG Incubator Programmed at Wei-Ling Gallery, further expanding his research into material transformation and ecological systems. He has also participated in artist residencies including the Sunyi Artist-in-Residence Programmed in Langkawi and the Inap Ilmu Residency, where he was mentored by Prof. Hasnul Jamal Saidon and Hasanul Isyraf Idris.

In 2025, Khabir presented his first solo exhibition, Sukma: Megah, Tundok, at Wei- Ling Gallery. The exhibition brought together a body of work centered on decomposition, repair, humility, and transformation through the use of compost soil and hand-stitched forms. Reflecting on the porous relationship between body, earth, and time, the exhibition positioned material change as both an ecological process and a spiritual condition, embodying the artist’s ongoing investigation into interconnected modes of life.

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KIM NG (B. 1965)

Kim Ng is a Malaysian artist based in Kuala Lumpur. Since 2002, he has been actively engaged in academia, teaching, and managing the Fine Art department. Kim Ng holds an honours Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, which he obtained from London Guildhall University in the UK in 1996. He further pursued his education, earning two Master’s degrees in Design and Media Arts from the University of Westminster in 1997 and an MA by Project from London Metropolitan University in 2002, both in London, UK.

Over the past three decades, Kim Ng has demonstrated his proficiency in multidisciplinary art. His artistic practice encompasses diverse mediums such as printmaking, mixed media painting, ceramics, sculpture, and installation art. With an impressive portfolio, he has held eight solo exhibitions at various local art galleries and spaces in Malaysia since 2000, in addition to participating in numerous group exhibitions.

Kim Ng’s talent has garnered international recognition, as evidenced by his invitation to participate in the collateral event at the Venice Biennale in 2022. His work is being collected by private individuals and corporations both within and outside the country.

Beyond his local engagements, Kim Ng has actively participated in international art workshops and artist residencies in Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia. As a dedicated professional, he consistently seeks growth as an artist, enthusiastically embracing new challenges and pushing the boundaries of art-making.

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LATIFF MOHIDIN (B. 1941)

Abdul Latiff Mohidin (b. 1941) is a prominent Malaysian modernist artist, writer and poet from Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. As a child he was known as “Wonder Boy” and “the magical boy with the gift in his hands” due to his prodigious talent and early artistic acumen. He completed his primary education at Kota Raja Malay School in Singapore where he also had his first exhibition in 1951. From 1960-1964, Latiff studied art at Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste (Academy of Fine Arts) in Berlin, Germany on a scholarship. A journey across Southeast Asia in 1964 would later inspire an array of esteemed artworks and series which melded his European experience with his cultural identity. His series, Pago-Pago (1960-1969), Mindscape (1973, 1974-1983), Langkawi (1976-1980) and Gelombang (1985-1993) are known for their distinctive representation of culture, nature, the environment and mysticism. His masterful technique and use of dynamic brush strokes, textured oil paint and vibrant colours mark his works with an identifiable Latiff flair. He has exhibited worldwide, including solo exhibitions in Berlin, Frankfurt, Bangkok, Singapore, New Delhi, New York, Sydney, Osaka, Montreal, Manila, Jakarta, Dublin and London to name a few. In 2018, he became the first Southeast Asian artist to be featured at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The artist now resides in Penang.

(Credit: Ilham Gallery)

MARK TAN (B. 1991)

Mark Tan is an artist based in Kuala Lumpur. He received his BA in Drawing and Applied Arts from the University of West England. Working through photography, drawing, and printmaking, his various configurations become sensory fragments that investigate the methodologies of mark-making. The psychological spaces of memory as a site of constant flux are then used as a trigger for Tan’s practice. Mark is one of the recipients of the Khazanah Nasional Residency in 2022/23 and over the years he has exhibited both locally and internationally in Singapore, Indonesia, France, and the UK.

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NASRUL ROKES (B.1999)

Born in Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia, and raised in Johor, Nasrul completed his Bachelor’s degree in fine art at UiTM Malaysia. Growing up near a sand and cement factory, Nasrul’s childhood play with the earthen material is embedded in his work.

With a focus on sand as his medium of choice, Nasrul sees the canvas as an “arena” in which artists act; “acting” upon the canvas in a similar way in which he used to play with sand as a child, Nasrul’s abstract work captures a sense of his own personal memory, experience, and pure emotion. In his most recent series of works, Nasrul depicts the symbiotic relationship between the Earth and the community, disrupted by the relentless pursuit of urban expansion. In his paintings, he mimics the aesthetic quality of rainfall, with colorful sand droplets forming unique textures, symbolizing sentiments of growth, joy, and love, questioning how these forces collide with the corrosive elements of human-led degradation of the Earth. Through his tactile artistic language, Nasrul creates an abstract landscape to amplify the silent cries of displaced soil, echoing the environmental and societal consequences of prioritising profit over preservation, conveying the concept of an artificial landscape created by humans.

Throughout his artistic journey, he has actively participated in various art competitions and exhibitions across Malaysia and Singapore. Nasrul’s first solo exhibition, Kontekstura, took place at TAKSU Kuala Lumpur in 2023 and was a successful, largely sold-out show. With a promising career ahead, Nasrul’s artworks were recently acquired by the luxury brand LVMH Group and the Hyatt Hotel Group, and have been collected by both regional and international collectors, as well as public institutions in Shanghai, Singapore, and Malaysia.

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YAU BEE LING (B. 1972)

Yau Bee Ling (she/her) (b. 1972, Malaysia), one of Malaysia’s foremost painters, has spent her 35-year career creating a deeply personal commentary on women’s complex roles in contemporary society. Her work draws from her own experiences, using symbolism and autobiographical themes to examine the shifting female identities of woman, wife, and mother. Family and community ties engage her inner self in a complex dance between duty and independence, hope and fear, success and failure. Within this context, she explores questions of meaning, probing existential themes and pondering, ultimately, her own legacy.

Each series of paintings is charged with its own distinctive energy, reflective of her state of mind, her emotional wellbeing and the way she perceives her place in the world at the time. Her works are therefore a cathartic process for her as she struggles to reconcile the meaning of life, through the layering and scraping back of paint and colour, navigating her way through the twisting terrain of her paintings in the search for truth.

Bee Ling has exhibited extensively in exhibitions across China, Pakistan, Sweden, Singapore, Bangladesh, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia and represented Malaysia at the Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1999 and at the Fukuoka Triennale in 2002. Her collection is also at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei National University of The Arts, Taipei, Taiwan, where she was Kuandu Artist in Residence at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei in 2016. Her works are in the permanent collections of numerous private and public collections including Mulpha, Maxis Berhad and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.

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YEOH CHOO KUAN (B. 1988)

Yeoh Choo Kuan’s practice articulates the tension between a spiritual élan and the magnetism of desire, violence and the flesh. The natural landscape and the overload of information are extremes of a spectrum he embraces and represents in all its contradictions.With abstract painting as a strong foundation, Choo Kuan has in the latest years transcended into the conceptual realm of installation. His explorations of different artistic domains meet a sheer enjoyment of textures, mark making, and disintegration of the pictorial matter. The biographical, psychological and emotional element is always his point of departure, leading then into visual reflections on our shared socio-political realm.

Choo Kuan’s solo exhibitions include: Today’s Special (2020), Richard Koh Fine Art Singapore; Streaming Mountain (2019), Richard Koh Fine Art Singapore; Lights In (2018), Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok; Live Leak (2017), Richard Koh Fine Art Malaysia; Private Sentiment (2012), and House of Matahati, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

He currently lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

(Credit: Richard Koh Fine Art)

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ZULKIFLI LEE (B. 1978)

Zulkifli Lee (b. 1978, Malaysia) is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, sculpture and installation. His practice explores the language of materials and their inherent properties. By using organic and industrial elements, he reflects on the dynamic relationship between humans and nature, investigating the intersections of man-made and natural systems. Embracing chance and the intrinsic qualities of his chosen materials, Lee often allows nature to act as a collaborator in the creative process, highlighting tensions between agency, intervention, and control. His work engages with ideas of formal aesthetics, identity, and the contingent values of contemporary life.

He holds an MA in Fine Art and Technology (2013) and a BA in Art and Design (2000) from Universiti Teknologi MARA. Since 1999, he has exhibited widely in Malaysia and abroad. His four solo exhibitions include Material, Order & Chance (Rimbun Dahan, 2017), Trace (SantySap-tari, Jakarta, 2020), Interdependence (TAKSU, Kuala Lumpur, 2021), and Consonance & Dissonance (Mizuma Gallery, Singapore, 2024).

He has undertaken residencies at Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia (2017) and ACME Studios, London (2019). His works are in major collections including the Singapore Art Museum, ILHAM Foundation, Khazanah Nasional and Muzium Seni Kontemporari Kuantan.

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